Mysterious, intriguing, and even a little frightening, conspiracy theories of various kinds have captivated Americans for decades.
1. The Philadelphia Experiment
This conspiracy theory was so interesting it spawned its own motion picture and a sequel. Allegedly, in 1943 the Navy was conducting an experiment called Project Rainbow to make a 1,240-ton Cannon class destroyer escort, the USS Eldridge, invisible using Einstein’s unified field theory. However, something went terribly wrong and the ship teleported from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Va., then back again. After the experiment, sailors aboard the ship were allegedly insane, burnt, and even fused to parts of the ship. According to the Office of Naval Intelligence, they have no record of the Philadelphia Experiment or of Einstein ever completing his unified field theory, and according to the USS Eldridge’s logs it was not in Philadelphia at the time.
2. 9/11 Was an Inside Job
The Internet is full of theories connecting the U.S. government with the 9/11 attacks. Some conspiracy theorists believe explosives planted in the World Trade Center days or even weeks before were the catalyst for their destruction after the planes struck. Many of these theorists believe the attacks were part of a false flag effort, to allow the federal government to easily enact laws, like the Patriot Act, that would pave the way for consolidating totalitarian control over the populace.
3. Hoax Moon Landing
The motives for faking the moon landing might be different: budget, radiation, the Cold War space race, and so on. The claims of a lunar landing hoax were based on analysis of video and pictures taken by astronauts on the moon. For example, the rippling of the flag due to vacuum inertial effects makes the American flag appear as though it is flapping in the breeze. Skeptics contend equipment left by our astronauts like laser reflectors that are still being used today and the moon rocks brought back are proof enough that astronauts did indeed land on the moon.
4. Alien Space Ships Crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947
This is not the only alien/UFO/extra-terrestrial (ET) crash story circulating, but it is certainly the most popular. A flotilla of alien ships allegedly visited Roswell in June and July 1947. Most famously, in a ranch northwest of Roswell, N.M., an alien space ship was said to have crashed on July 4, 1947. The interesting thing is that four days later the Roswell Army Air Field released a press release: “The Army Air Forces here today announced a flying disk had been found,” according to the Roswell Museum website. The story was printed and aired on radio. The Air Force later retracted the story, stating the crashed object was an experimental weather balloon.
5. Obama Faked His Birth Certificate
Remember when Donald Trump demanded the president’s birth certificate and later the White House released Obama’s birth certificate? Well, many thought that would be the end of the debate. However, after taking a closer look at the released document, conspiracy enthusiasts allegedly found evidence that the document had been altered repeatedly and was not a simple scan of the original as the White House had described it.
“You use Adobe Illustrator and each of the individual dates is in its own separate layer. This thing has been fabricated,” said Lord Monckton, former adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher according to Michael Savage’s wnd.com.
